One thing about Travis Scott: he never misses an opportunity to turn something into a proper, capital-m Moment, with a full-360 rollout.
Last week, on the heels of its 10th anniversary, Scott’s 2014 mixtape Days Before Rodeo was finally added to DSPs; the project is highly regarded by fans and rap scholars alike as the seminal work that solidified Scott as an upcoming artist to be reckoned with, the potential Next Big Thing. We know how that all turned out, of course, but even amidst blockbuster albums, paradigm-shifting tours and a stronghold on the zeitgeist, Days has always remained in the conversation as arguably his best work.
Regardless of where he’d rank it, Scott knows what the tape and its reception meant to his career, so he celebrated the “official release” (I’ll save a rant about how absurd it is that streaming convenience has made us all so dependent on listening to music one way that a release of a 10-year-old mixtape is a big deal for later) with a one-night only show in Atlanta, an apt location given the tape’s stellar guest features from the city’s own T.I., Young Thug, Migos (RIP Takeoff), PeeWee LongWay, Rich Homie Quan and production from ATLiens like Metro Boomin and FKI 1st. He also tacked on five bonus songs “from that era”—mostly leaks that superfans were aware of but never had in full, pristine, legal quality—and dropped off a limited-run merch bundle. (Travis never misses a chance to push Travis Scott merch, but in this case, like everything else from that era, the DBR designs rank among his best.)
Today he keeps the Days party going with a new music video for “Drugs You Should Try It,” which may be the biggest gift to the La Flame faithful yet. For the uninitiated: if Days Before Rodeo is arguably his best project, “Drugs You Should Try It” is, perhaps even less arguably, his best song. Given his music’s reputation, one might expect a track that’s more of a rager to hold that honor within his fanbase. Instead, “Drugs” is moody, even tender, distorting his already typically distorted voice into a haze of woozy, intoxicated yearning over a down-tempo beat from FKI 1st. Ten years ago it proved Travis had more in his arsenal than just mosh-ready anthems; ten years later it still sounds like one of the freshest, most singular compositions he’s ever created.
“There’s nothing that sounds like it, bro,” 1st told me back on the tape’s fifth anniversary. “The way the song starts, the melody of the guitar, the way the drums come in, the pauses, the effects on his voice, it’s everything about it that’s just never [been] heard before. The first line of the song, ‘I’ll try it if it feels right,’ doesn’t have to be about drugs. It could be about love. It could be about anything, and everybody [can relate] to that position.”
The visual is appropriately just as moody and emo, with several shots in black-and-white, and one of Travis reaching for the moon that recreates the DBR cover art. There’s an actual wolf in the mix for added emphasis, while Travis poses around a sparse dungeon, coolly lusting after several models doing their best femme fatale look. It all feels like a cool scene from Blade. It’s not the most involved video, but that he even made one is a great gesture from an artist who seems to always be in step with his fanbase. And maybe it’s a sign that he’s going to indulge his Days reverie a bit longer? Perhaps there’s something to that comment he made about taking the Atlanta show on the road…
